


House is a Beggar

by tisfan



Series: Imagine Clint and Coulson prompts [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint likes to Bake, M/M, Mutual Pining, Phil likes to fix things, Pining, and take naps, so much pine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9921896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Anon asked for:Phil's new hot neighbour needs a lot of help. Not that Phil minds spending time with the guy, but how destructive and helpless can a grown man be? Until it turns out he's not that helpless at all and might have sabotaged his own apartment on purpose…





	

**Author's Note:**

> “We are always accepting new prompts at our tumblr account, so feel free to drop by with a little headcanon or ask.”

“House is a beggar,” is what Phil’s mother had told him, back when Phil was first moving in, some fifteen years ago. Honestly, he’d almost wished she’d told him _before_ he spent weeks looking at homes and then more weeks doing all the freaking mortgage paperwork. And she wasn’t even helping him move in so much as she was standing around criticizing -- in a loving way, because his mom loved him, she just couldn’t seem to help fussing, either -- the way he was laying out the furniture or the fact that one of Phil’s moving buddies had managed to ding the wall with the sofa. 

Mom was gone now, and the house was still begging. Phil wiped sweat off his forehead and stood back to look at his work. The front gutter had come loose during the last storm and rather than just tying it back on with wire, Phil decided it was past time to get a whole new rainwater disposal system and had installed Leaf-guards all over the house. Looked a little space-aged and weird against the roof of his flat-faced Colonial, but whatever. Cleaning the gutters out had been one of his least favorite tasks ever, so this was bound to be better. 

“Mornin’ Phil,” said hot neighbor guy, which scared the hell out of Phil and he almost dropped his tool bucket. Hot neighbor-guy -- Kit? Chris? Clint! That was it! -- had moved in two weeks ago and he was the sneakiest son of a bitch that Phil had ever met. At the moment, he was perched up on the roof of his overhanging porch, leaning against the column, shirtless and sweaty, looking down into the yard. He had a supersized cup of coffee in one hand, thus the morning comment, even though it was technically half-past noon. 

“Did I wake you?” It was a legit concern. Clint was always coming in at weird hours; Phil got the feeling he worked nights and there was only so quiet one could be while attaching gutters to the side of the house. 

Clint made a vague sort of gesture that could have meant no, yes, yes and I’m going to kill you, or yes but that’s okay. “Wonderin’ if you have a wrench in that bucket of yours,” he said, leaning over, the balancing act he was doing against the rail with his cup of coffee was impressive and made the muscles in his biceps stand out. Given that the man was already sweating, Clint could be forgiven for staring. Sort of. It was rude, but hey… 

“What sort of wrench?” Phil asked, trying not to roll his eyes because the way Clint said wrench, he might as well have said tricorder. The man obviously didn’t know the business end of a tool. 

Clint jerked his thumb back, indicating his house. “Shower’s not workin’ right.” 

“Do you know how to fix it?” 

“Not really,” Clint said. “How hard could it be?” 

Phil rolled his tongue around in his mouth a little and decided he was just too nice a guy to let Clint tear his own shower to pieces just to teach him a lesson. “Give me a minute and I’ll come take a look at it,” Phil offered. “I’m handy with tools.” 

Clint blinked, almost choked on a mouthful of his coffee and flashed Phil a look. “I’ll bet you are,” he muttered. “Yeah, yeah --” louder this time. “--That’d be great. I’ll owe you one.” 

***

 “Oh, man, I owe you one,” Clint said, opening and shutting the closet door. “That was driving me nuts.” 

“I have to say, I’m impressed,” Phil said, not minding that Clint was standing just a little too close, having pinned him in between Clint’s impressive arms and the wall as he tested out the new door. “I’ve never seen anyone install every single hinge upside down and backward. Statistically, you should have gotten at least one of them right.” 

Clint snorted. “These hands have many talents, but carpentry ain’t one of ‘em.” 

Hardly carpentry, installing a new door, but whatever. Phil had gone through all of this, years before, as he learned to do the maintenance that went with owning a home. It was why they were called build _ings_ instead of builts. Never actually finished. Back in the day, with money tight, it was learn to rewire the kitchen, or turn off all the lights in the living room before using the toaster. It was dealing with a leaking ceiling for months before learning how to patch a roof. Figuring out how to replace the element in the oven, or eating stove-top all the time. Phil had figured it out. 

And as Clint paid attention and had never asked for Phil’s help with the same issue more than once, Phil was willing to pass on his knowledge to someone else. He’d even packed up his old copies of Your Home and You, a self-help guide to basic home improvement, and was planning to give them to Clint as a birthday present or something. Except he kept forgetting, and for Clint’s birthday Phil had ended up baking a cake and bringing over a 6-pack of microbrew dark ale, which went spectacularly with Clint’s baked mac&cheese and then the books just seemed like too much. 

And it wasn’t actually a hardship, spending time with Clint, practically under the man while Phil showed him how to fix a leaky pipe, or letting Clint hold onto his hips while he balanced on a footstool and installed a ceiling fan. Getting physical and sweaty with Clint was a privilege and a pleasure. Even if they were painting the fucking walls and not painting the town. 

 _Dirty old man._  

Not that Phil was _old_ \-- just forty-seven -- but he was quite a bit older than Clint, who’d just put thirty-three candles on his cake. He wasn’t quite old enough to be Clint’s father, but certainly old enough that Clint wouldn’t look twice. They’d settled into a sort of mentor-apprentice friendship, so Phil thought and it was nice enough. Phil didn’t have many friends who lived in the same state. The side effect of being retired military is that all his friends retired to different places around the world. 

“Any time,” Phil said. And he meant that.

 *** 

“How many do I owe you at this point?” Clint asked as Phil squirmed into the narrow crawlspace. 

“About two hundred and thirty,” Phil said. He shone the flashlight. “Yep. Squirrels got up here, I think. Your wiring’s all chewed up. No problem, I can fix it, but you’ll want to get a pest-control service set up to live-trap or something.” 

*** 

Cookies were nice, Phil decided as Clint curled up on the sofa next to him. It had become a thing. Phil did maintenance and repair work on Clint’s house and Clint baked cookies -- or brownies, or pie, or on one marvelous occasion, an Oreo cheesecake that had been, if not to die for, at least to maim for -- as thanks, and they would eat junk food and watch terrible tv. The first few times, Clint had sat in the recliner, but the whole getting up four times to get more cake thing got old and now they just sat together. 

Clint was very… cuddly. Like an overgrown puppy or something. Phil would find himself, toward the end of the movie, with Clint napping against his shoulder, or sometimes with his head resting on Phil’s thigh. Whenever Phil was certain that Clint was asleep, he’d sometimes give in to temptation and run his fingers through Clint’s soft, buzz-cut hair. 

“So, in terms of work versus baked goods,” Clint said, stuffing two of the white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies into his mouth at once and chewing noisily. How the man managed to be so damned sexy while still being a complete and utter trainwreck, Phil had no idea. “How do you think we’re doing? I don’t want to be the slack half of this relationship.” 

Phil chuckled. “It’s all good,” he said. It was, really, it was. It certainly wasn’t Clint’s fault that Phil wanted an actual relationship. Neighbors. They were neighbors. And Clint was a young, hot man, with his whole life ahead of him, while Phil was… retired. He’d be sending his kids off to college if he’d gotten his act together when he was of age for that, but he never had, and whenever he looked at Clint, he knew why. Because that, right there. _Clint Barton_. That was all Phil had ever wanted. And since it came ‘round too late, Phil would just take what he could get and be happy with it. He was philosophical that way. 

*** 

“Yeah,” Clint said, one afternoon after Phil and he wrestled the old dishwasher down the driveway, and then installed a new one, “I don’t think this is working out anymore.” 

“Huh?” Phil wiped his oily fingers off on a work-rag. 

“The I owe you one,” Clint said. “Think I need to square up my debt and get out of your life.” 

The entire world dropped six feet under his feet and left Phil scrambling with the feeling of _what the utter fuck_. “Clint, you don’t owe me anything,” Phil protested. “I’m happy to --” 

“But I’m _not_ ,” Clint said, not meeting his gaze. “And it just gets harder every time.” 

 _Don’t leave me._ “Well, I’m still happy to help out,” Phil said. “The cookies and the movies, that can go, if you’re uncomfortable with it. I try not to let… I mean, if you… I didn’t know it was so obvious.” 

Clint blinked. “What’s obvious?” 

“That I --” Phil said, then stopped. “Wait, what are you talking about?” 

“You,” Clint said, running one hand through his hair. “You. I mean, I know you think I’m just a kid, but I haven’t been on a date in months because whenever I take someone else out, I end up feelin’ like an asshole because I’d rather it was you. And you keep me at arm’s length, like you don’t want to encourage some stupid kid with a crush, like all _Don’t Stand So Close to Me_ or something. An’ now you’re looking at me like that, and I’ll just… I should go.” 

Phil swallowed a lump in his throat somewhat larger than a golf ball. “It’s your house, Clint,” he pointed out. 

“Yeah. I guess. Kinda runnin’ out of things for you to fix, too, so… sooner or later, you were gonna figure it out, that I was just lookin’ for an excuse to spend time with you, and I don’t want to make you have to let me down easy, so…” 

“So, how much do you think you owe me?” Phil said, chest breaking open with sudden hope. 

“I dunno,” Clint said. He still hadn’t looked up, hadn’t noticed the entire tenor change of the conversation. “You keep my life runnin’, Phil. I don’t even know how to repay you for all that.” 

Phil closed the distance between them, ran one grease-stained finger under Clint’s chin and lifted his head. “I know another currency you could use, if you think you still owe me anything,” he suggested. 

Clint tried to speak, but he somehow got lost, staring at Phil like a starving man, his mouth working but no words came out. 

“The exchange is open for kisses, as well,” Phil offered.

 Something sparked then, and Clint’s mouth turned up in a shy, hopeful smile. “Is it?” 

“Yeah,” Phil said. He was close enough now that he could feel the tickle of Clint’s breath against his cheek. 

“Think I might have a few of those to spare.” His arms went around Phil’s neck, one hand sliding into Phil’s hair, cradling the back of his skull. And when Clint’s mouth came down on his, Phil opened his lips and wondered what else in Clint’s house might need fixing.


End file.
